“Honor” sounds quaint to modern ears. When I teach the Declaration of Independence, I find that students often struggle to understand why its signers committed “our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor” to the cause of liberty. Raised to regard health and wealth as the highest goods, they cannot easily imagine why dishonor might […]
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Most everyone agrees that tenure is in trouble. At many schools, adjunct and non-tenure-track faculty make up a majority of college teachers, and in plenty of departments they teach the majority of classes. Writers are calling into question the value of tenure, alleging that it protects research-focused and even incompetent professors to the detriment of […]
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Employers tend to complain that the graduates of American universities are skilled in solving particular problems but “often miss the big picture.” This complaint rings true for colleges graduates in general these days, but it’s an even larger issue for M.B.A. students, who hope to ultimately ascend to leadership positions in a wide array of businesses. […]
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A recent bombshell article by National Review‘s Kevin D. Williamson may elevate the impeachment proceedings against University of Texas Regent Wallace Hall to a national issue. “There is something rotten in the state of Texas,” argues Williamson in his essay, “Lone Star Lunacy“. “A regent [Wallace Hall] exposes wrongdoing at the University of Texas and […]
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Anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock for the past several years knows that things are harder for college graduates than they once were. Higher education writing that exaggerates this point with the help of misleading factoids consequently leaves readers less informed than they were before. Writers are especially to be blamed when the […]
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Posted by Michael Poliakoff and Avi Snyder It’s a sad day for Rutgers University. Amidst widespread student and faculty protests over her selection as Rutgers’ commencement speaker, Condoleezza Rice has turned down her invitation. In a statement, she said that her background in academia allows her to “understand and embrace the purpose of the commencement ceremony”; to that end, she […]
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Everything created by humanity is subject to a cycle of creation and destruction. Humans live 70-80 or sometimes even 100 years; their business enterprises rarely last that long. A generation ago, there was no Facebook or Google, but Enron and Eastman Kodak were going strong. Even buildings seldom last more than 200-300 years. Until recently, […]
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To great fanfare, the Education Department released a list of 55 colleges and universities that the OCR is investigating for allegedly violating Title IX in their treatment of sexual assault issues. Though Education Secretary Arne Duncan said there’s “absolutely zero” presumption of guilt in the list’s release, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that principles […]
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E21 What is the cost of getting married? When it comes to sending your children to school, it can be in the tens of thousands of dollars. As high school seniors face tomorrow’s deadline to decide on college acceptance offers, the marriage question is likely weighing on many people’s minds. The Economics21 editors have written […]
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Across the country, student health centers are showing signs of financial bloat and costly mission creep. Funded by both hefty campus health fees and payments from students’ insurers, university health centers spend their extra cash on boutique services and progressive programs. In universities’ early days, the campus infirmary was simple. As a primary care practice […]
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Justice Scalia began his concurring opinion in Schuette v. BAMN last week by writing that, in this case, “we confront a frighteningly bizarre question: Does the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment forbid what its text plainly requires?” And he’s right that the Fourteenth Amendment and the Michigan ballot initiative at issue in Schuette […]
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Cross-posted from Open MarketJustice Brandeis once observed that “The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.” However well-meaning they may be, the Obama administration’s guidance and task force recommendations yesterday on campus sexual harassment and rape contain an insidious attack on cross-examination (as KC […]
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Two new documents out from the White House–the Vice President’s task force recommendations and a question and answer document from the OCR–continue the assault on due process at the expense of males accused of rape or sexual assault on campus. The administration tips its hand quickly with a telltale verbal switch–referring to complainants as “survivors,” rather than as […]
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Three dozen students picketed the admissions office at Smith College last week. “The protest,” Inside Higher Ed reports, “called for Smith to admit those who may be listed as male on their high school transcripts but have been living as women.” Smith explained that it does not discriminate against transgender students who are enrolled and […]
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A few years ago, the Patrick Witt case at Yale exposed the unwillingness of an Ivy League institution to uphold even the minimal due process protections the schools accord to students accused of sexual assault. Witt, recall, was a star quarterback who withdrew his Rhodes application, the interview for which coincided with the Harvard-Yale game. […]
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When I was an undergraduate in the early 1970s at an elite liberal arts college, my anthropology professor assigned me as a paper topic, “Why do nearly all the students in the college wear blue jeans?” It was a surprisingly tough question. Looking around, virtually every student at the all-male college was wearing Levis or […]
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I’ve written previously about Katie Baker, the new BuzzFeed reporter on the “rape culture” beat, a correspondent for whom due process appears to be an alien concept. But in an article about Brown, and in her determination to wage war on campus due process, Baker buries the lede. Her story actually shows how anti-due process […]
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Our best public universities have spotty records in teaching such subjects as U.S.history, science and writing, and are having a persistent problem with grade inflation, according to a new report from the organization I work for, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA). Our report, Getting What You Pay For?: A Look at America’s […]
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The news in the Wall Street Journal this week about college loans was unsurprising. A special plan passed by the Democratic Congress in 2007 and expanded by the Obama Administration, “Pay As You Earn,” has grown wildly, “nearly 40% in just six months, to include at least 1.3 million Americans owing around $72 billion,” the […]
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How do the fine arts fit with the liberal arts? Not as well as one might think. Painting, music, photography, and other arts are often part of today’s jumbled curriculum, but they seldom have the academic status of disciplines such as English and art history. The situation is reversed when it comes to public status, where having a prize-winning […]
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